Atmospheric Sciences & Global Change Staff Awards & Honors

Jerome Fast Presents Aerosol Research as Invited Speaker at Gordon Research Conference

Congratulations to Dr. Jerome Fast, Staff Scientist in the Atmospheric Science and Global Change Division, on his invitation to speak at this year's Gordon Research Conference. This year's conference took place July 29–August 2 at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire. Speakers at the Gordon Research Conferences are internationally-recognized leaders in their field and are invited to discuss the most recent advances in their research.

The theme of this year's conference on Radiation and Climate was "Integrating multiscale measurements and models for key climate questions." Featuring lectures, posters, and discussion regarding these issues, the meeting focused on insights from new types of satellite and in situ data and from new approaches to modeling processes in the climate system.

In his presentation, Jerome discussed his recent research during a session on "Regional Aerosol Models: Simulation of 'Chemical Weather.' "

"With the rapid growth of megacities around the world, it's important to understand how pollutants from these large sources contribute to potential changes in global climate," Fast said. "To address this issue, a field campaign was conducted during March 2006 in the vicinity of Mexico City that obtained extensive measurements from surface, aircraft, and satellite platforms."

Jerome is integrating this data with high resolution 'chemical weather' simulations to better understand how the complex mix of primary particulate sources evolve and influence aerosol radiative forcing downwind of Mexico City. This effort will provide insight into the sources of uncertainties resulting from specific treatments of aerosols in models.

Held annually since 1931, the Gordon Research Conference provides an international forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies. The format of the conferences permits junior scientists, post-doctoral fellows, and graduates students extensive time to interact with the speakers in an informal setting.

As a member of the Meteorology group at PNNL, Jerome's research activities are focused on climate and chemistry interactions to improve the treatments of aerosol processes employed by computer models for climate, weather, and aerosol dispersion.